DECEMBERASIA BUSINESS OUTLOOK9TikTok owner ByteDance has offered to buy back shares from investors for about $5 billion at a price that would cost the company $268 billion, two people familiar with the matter said on Dec 6. The Chinese tech giant offered to buy back shares for $160 a share, the same amount it paid employees last month.One of the sources said the $268 billion is worth 10 percent less than when it launched a plan to buy money from investors a year ago.The South China Morning Post first reported it on Dec 6 morning. ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The sources were not identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.ByteDance has been expanding into areas such as e-commerce but has started to retreat from a four-year foray into mainstream video games with a plan to wind down its Nuverse gaming brand, Reuters reported last month.Buybacks allow employees to cash in shares without waiting for the company to list on the stock market. An initial public offering for ByteDance has been highly anticipated for years, but the company has said since 2021 that it had no imminent plans amid Beijing's heightened scrutiny of China's technology giants. NEWSROOMBYTEDANCE OFFERS SHARE BUYBACK SCHEME FOR INVESTORSThe social media platform will begin encrypting messages on Facebook and Instagram by default, the Wall Street Journal reported on Dec. 6, citing people familiar with the matter. WSJ reports that Facebook will begin automatically converting Facebook users' messages to end-to-end encryption starting this week, with the change over several weeks.The report suggests that Instagram direct messages will also switch to this default encryption in the future, possibly in the new year. Mehta did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment on the report. The change is that Facebook and Instagram users do not need to change the encryption feature, which ensures that it can only be read by the sender and recipient.Meta, which encrypts messages on its WhatsApp platform, said encryption helps users stay safe from hackers and criminals. End-to-end encryption has been a bone of contention between companies and governments. The British government had urged Meta back in September not to roll out encryption on Instagram and Facebook Messenger without safety measures to protect children from sexual abuse. META TO IMPLEMENT END-TO-END ENCYPTION FOR FACEBOOK MESSAGES
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